Hope guides us through life's valleys

FAITH TODAY - Published Saturday April 25th, 2009

There was a pastor in the southern United States who wrote a blues song a few years back called the Post Resurrection Blues and here are the opening verses:

Thomas woke up that morning,

The sky was really grey,

it fit his mood exactly,

he said, "Aw what the hey...

Chorus:

I got the blues,

those low, down, dirty post-resurrection blues,

(now ain't that news!)

I'm so listless and unfocused,

I'm gonna need some Hoc Est Pocus

I've got the blues.

"What should we do - Now that the resurrection's over?

We should be feeling high --

like standing in high clover.

Peter said, "Let's go fishin'"

I said, "we might as well,

I've never been one to dance,

and it's too wet to plow.

And back to the chorus once more . . .

I know that as you read this the temperature is supposed to climb to 22 degrees Celsius and we will have the first sunny Saturday of what might be a great season of sunny Saturdays.

But in terms of faith, in terms of the church world, this is the beginning of nothing.

I hate when Easter ends.

Easter is the most important festival of the church; a high holy holiday when we talk about miracles, about new life, about hope.

It is filled with lilies and sunshine, power hymns and new hats.

Or something like that.

There is actually a reasonably well-known term for it; Easter is the proverbial mountaintop experience.

But here is the thing they never tell you as you are climbing up that mountain: you can't stay there. Pretty soon you are tumbling down the other side.

Most of our lives are lived in the valley.

And the thing about valleys is that they are not that special; if you have seen one valley you have seen them all.

And valleys tend to obscure the sunshine. They tend to be dreary and ordinary and, well . . . not mountains.

And while you are slogging through the valley you can no longer feel the sunshine.

This is an article, and not a sermon, so let me tell you why I am waxing so poetic about all of this. When you are a part of a church, you have a long lead-up to Easter. It is a build-up, really, about how wonderful this event was, about how salvific Jesus's death and resurrection was.

I've come a long way beyond thinking there are any simple answers to Easter.

But still, I expect something.

And what I see year after year is that as soon as it is over, we move on to something else -- most likely to Sunday School closing and heading to the cottages.

So what real meaning does it have anymore?

What does it mean that we believe there was some sort of event 2,000 years ago in Jerusalem?

Let's go back to the song:

So there was Jesus

he'd fixed us some brunch

he figured we'd be there,

just call it a hunch.

We no longer wondered

what we were to do,

cause after the resurrection

He would still see us through . . .

2nd Chorus:

I'm no longer blue,

lost my low, down dirty post-resurrection blues.

(now that's Good News!)

We're back at the banquet table

and we're ready, willing and able

and no longer blue.

I like to think of it this way: Easter is about knowing while in the valley that the mountaintop beckons.

It is about hope and even if that hope seems to fade really quickly, it is still there. The disciples found themselves locked away for fear and loss and into the midst of that came Jesus with the promise of new life.

It is hard to hold on to Easter.

It is hard to hold on the good times when things seem to have gone bad.

There is, however, a timeless truth here.

It does not take much to get us through; sometimes it is just a memory.

Hope is what it is all about.